DVD Drive Recommendation?

[xortam]

HedsSpaz ...

Originally posted by HedsSpaz:
I saw Mylex listed and took a look at their products, but there were two problems: first, all of the controllers that I saw listed were RAID, which while that would be very nice, I don't need it. Second, they were all prohibitively expensive, the cheapest one was 390$ some while the Adaptec 19160 is only 185$ and the 29160 is 199$.(white box)

I use a Mylex RAID for my storage but my other SCSI devices are run off of my on-board U2W SCSI. My FlashPoint LW (KT-950) only cost me $125. I haven't priced the equivalent strictly SCSI controller, but it must be less. For those interested, you can find Mylex products described here. ... Just checked this site and it looks like they recently stopped selling my board and the other less expensive controllers. I guess they decided to abandon the less profitable products as they're moving up the high-end. They now sell into the SAN market (fibre-attached storage).

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• ASUS P2B-S Rev 1.03, PIII 450MHz, Award ACPI BIOS v1010, 128 MB RAM
• MYLEX FlashPoint RAID+ (BIOS v2.02N) running RAID 0 on two 9 GB IBM DDRS 39130D Disks
• Diamond MX300 sound card, now with MX25 S/PDIF output
• Matrox Millennium G400 Max Dual Head - English
• NEC 5FG monitor
• Logitech MouseMan Wheel
• YAMAHA CRW4416S and NEC Multispin 3x CDs
• 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100Mb TX NIC (3C905B-TX)
• US Robotics 56K Voice FaxModem Pro
• Pioneer DVD-303S SCSI
• Note--All SCSI devices (except disk drives on RAID) are connected to onboard AIC7890 U2W SCSI
• Mainly running Win98 v4.10.1998

[kkfong]

Gurm:

Contact me if you are selling

I tried to send you email, but no response...

Originally posted by Gurm:
kkfong:

I'll sell ya my Toshiba 1201B. I'm always looking for an excuse to buy better hardware (lusting after a Plextor CD-only drive).

- Gurm

[Marwyn]

Why everybody say "PIONEER" ?!? I have AOpen 1040 Pro (Tray version) witch is flashed to PEONEER 8-) and work absolutely flawless !!! CPU usage while read is about 2%! and 10xDVD is enough for everything.
btw: I know, now it`s not AOpen but PIONEER 8-)) (region free)

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ASUS A7V | || Duron 700@1010 | || TITAN Majesty -> cooling unit | || 128Mb PC133 | || G400 DH MAX | || SB Live! 1024 | || IBM 25Gb | || HP Writer 7100 | || DVD AOpen 1040 (flash Pionner) | || Win2k
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Only one thing is missing in my life. Save button. (bad English I know...)

[NightSide]

I don´t now what u all guys got but i hav a HITACHI GD-5000 It works well no problems yet =) fu**ing silent ! but I had to 1 in my planes to buy a toshiba but Im wery glad whit my HITACHI DVD ! so im glad that I din´t buy a Toshiba I don´t now how good It is ... but HITACHI i Good ....

[fds]

kkfong,

2) SPDIF out (or whatever connector that'll get me 5.1 output). I have SB Live! mp3+ 5.1

Connectors on the DVD-ROM drive has nothing to do with getting Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC3) sound from DVD movies.

It's a question of DVD player software, sound card drivers and of course whether the sound card has the necessary hardware and connectors.

[Wombat]

Minor correction there. Connections do matter. You'll need a digital out. Most drives have it, just make sure.

[xortam]

Why do you need a digital out connection Wombat? The digital audio stream is separated out by the DVD software and passed to the audio card which will just pass it out to an onboard or outboard decoder. The DVD software gets its input from the data channel through the bus connected peripheral controller. Normal DVD to controller connections alone work just fine.

[Gurm]

Guys,

The "digital out" on the CD-Rom drive (or the DVD-Rom drive) is ONLY (ONLY) used for CD-audio. Not for DVD playback or anything else.

All DVD playback is handled as an ENCRYPTED stream which is decrypted by the player software or hardware.

The digital out has nothing to do with it.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Wombat]

oops. I learned something new.

[HedsSpaz]

Ok, a couple of comments.

Xortam, on the Mylex controllers, that would certainly explain why everything was listed was so pricey.

Marwyn, the reason you are able to flash the Aopen drive with a Pioneer ROM is because the AOpen drive is actually just a relabled Pioneer drive.

Wayne and Wombat, I agree, the Pioneer drive is a little noisy when it gets going at full tilt. ::sigh:: oh well, I think I'll live.

So, anyway, I did get the slot load version, and excuse me for being silly, but the slot load IS REALLY DAMN COOL!!! I have no idea why I find it so amusing but it is. I am very glad I got that one and not the tray version.

I did have a few problems with installation, but that was due to haveing an IDE cable that wasn't long enough to reach both my CD drive and my DVD drive. Again, oh well. It also took me quite some time to get the DVD software working, and I'm still not quite sure what it is that I eventually did that beat it into submission. It just flat out doesn't work under Win2000, and it took me like 2 hours of playing and downloading stuff from the web to get it to work.

But it all works now and I am very pleased. I already bought Neon Genesis Evangelion 0:1 and Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Operation 1 (two very kick a$$ ableit confusing anime's). And the I also rented Shanghai Moon the weekend I got the drive. Gotta love Jackie Chan, he's so good all he has to do is pull out of can of whoop ass, doesn't even have to open it.

Ian

[Lawlaw]

Gurm: you mentioned the pioneer drive and suggested to get it if I have a separate CDROM drive...why's that?

[Gurm]

The only reason I mentioned that is that if you don't intend to have a second CD-ROM drive you might want to consider a Toshiba, just because they can read ANYTHING.

You must recall here that I'm a fairly vocal CloneCD proponent, and if you want to copy safedisc protected games, or LaserLock protected games, or CDCops protected games... etc... etc... then you need a Toshiba DVD-drive.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Lawlaw]

Ok...went out to grab a Toshiba 1402 today and it wasn't good. I'm having problem with some of the CD-R burned with my Yamaha 8424. The drive is picky about the type of media...Mitsui is ok, Maxell is 50/50...and none of the cheap spindle stuff works. When I try to access the drive with a bad CD, Win NT gives me CRC error. Am I missing something? Or is this thing going back? Wondering if I should give another Toshiba a shot or switch to a Pioneer 115.

[DentyCracker]

I should be getting my Toshiba SDM1402TA early next week. I've a lot of burnt discs so we shall see how that goes (the usual DMA tests etc)

[Liriel]

Lawlaw - something is wrong. Is it IDE or SCSI? I'd try swapping it out first and proceeding from there.

- Gurm

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Gurm's better half.